Читать книгу The Lie Circumspect - Rita - Страница 8

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"Dear Madam—

"In answering your advertisement I think it best to be perfectly frank. I have never been a governess, but circumstances render it necessary that I should do something for a livelihood, and therefore I have reckoned up my talents and offer them for your inspection. I am a good linguist and musician. I have had a splendid education and enjoyed many social advantages. The death of my husband has left me almost destitute, and as I must turn my wits and brains to account I have been studying those columns in the daily press which are specially provided for the poor and needy.

"Do I seem frivolous? I assure you I am not. Only if I don't laugh I must cry—I am so nearly heartbroken, and so very, very poor. I don't know why I write so frankly. This is not at all the sort of letter that applicants for a governess's situation usually indite. But, as I began by saying, I will be perfectly frank and open with you. I am conscious of disqualifications, and yet they may not seem so to you. I am a widow, and have one child—a boy. The fact of motherhood may present itself to you as a certificate of merit in the management of your little girl. Only a mother rightly understands childhood and can blend authority with comprehension. In any case, this is my story, and here is my application. Distance renders a personal interview impossible. I am at present in Dublin; you, I gather, in an English county. However, I send you my photograph, and it may answer the purpose of introduction. I regret to hear you are an invalid. That, of course, adds to my responsibilities. I say 'my.' It seems to me almost that I am taking your hand and saying 'Madam, I hope I shall suit you.' If I do not the world is wide, and, I suppose, there is a place for me in it.

"Yours very truly,

"Kathleen Monteath.

"P.S.—My little boy will go to school, of course. He is nine years old. I should only expect to see him once a year, in my holiday time.

"K.M."

Mrs. Haughton read this epistle at breakfast-time, a week after her deliberation and its following resolve.

She had received many applications for the post of governess. A salary of £100 a year to educate a child of six is not offered every day.

As she laid down this frankly characteristic effusion she smiled. "I am half-inclined to try her," she said aloud.

Her husband looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

"Try whom?" he asked.

She passed the letter across the table. He glanced over it.

"What an odd production. Frank, indeed! Irish, that's plain to see. Do you think it wise for both attendant and instructress to boast of the same nationality?"

"I think it is of no importance. Connor is certainly an excellent nurse and most trustworthy. Already she is bringing Val into something like order."

He took up the letter again. "What does she mean by this? 'I regret to hear you are an invalid.' Did you state that in your advertisement?"

She colored faintly. "Yes; it is true in a way. I have never felt strong since Val's birth; and sometimes I think——"

He dropped the paper. "Well," he cried, "what is it? Why did you never tell me?"

"Because there is no need for you to be anxious," she said, with a smile. "If I like to lie on couches and drive instead of walk, it may be as much laziness as invalidism."

"You must come to town. You must see a doctor!" he exclaimed. "Now that I look at you, you are paler and thinner than you should be."

"I shall not see any doctor, Lawrence," she answered firmly. "I assure you I know my own health and my own constitution better than any stranger could know them. The—the doctor who attended me at Val's birth cautioned me about—after results. I need only be careful. Come, don't look so grave. Let us examine Mrs. Monteath's photograph. Here it is."

He came over to her side and studied the picture she placed on the table.

It represented a handsome woman of some thirty years, with smiling lips and large frank eyes and a beautiful figure.

"I like her," exclaimed Nell. "She is just what her letter says. I feel as if I heard her saying the words: 'Madam, I hope I shall suit you.'"

"It is a fine face," said Lawrence thoughtfully. "Bright, too—like her letter, as you say." He sighed and put the photograph down. "And God knows," he added, "we need some brightness here."

Mrs. Haughton made no answer. She folded the letter and replaced it in its envelope.

"I will write to her and ask her to come to us for a month," she said. "Of course, paying her expenses. Perhaps, she may not care to stay. The house is dull, as you say, and she may have been used to society before this trouble came."

Did she think at all of a time when she, too, had basked in the sunshine of natural enjoyment and innocent pleasures? Did she throw a regret to bright days and hours from which she had voluntarily cut herself adrift?

If Mrs. Haughton's thoughts were full of regrets, it was not apparent to the eyes that watched her face and read in its tranquil calm only an assurance necessary to his own selfish peace.

"I am anxious for Val's governess to be thoroughly trustworthy and of responsible age," continued Mrs. Haughton. "No young, inexperienced girl would do. I—I am almost sure, Lawrence, that Mrs. Monteath is the very person I want."

"I hope so, I am sure," he said, and he walked over to the window and stood looking out.

"How goes on the book?" asked his wife, as she too rose and gathered up her letters.

"I have got no further than notes yet," he answered. "In an important work, a work that embraces such a vast subject and its many branches, one must collect sufficient materials before one can commence to write even the opening chapter."

"Have you thought of a title for it?"

"Yes." His eyes were still on the lawn, where the autumn leaves had drifted. The falling rain wove a dull network between him and the trees, where the drenched birds perched in sodden discomfort.

"May one ask it?" said Nell playfully.

"I shall call it 'The Evolution of Crime,'" he answered.

Her face blanched. She steadied herself against the table and stared at him with wide, startled eyes. Then, with a strong effort, she recovered her composure, and with no further word left the room.

He, recognising her absence, walked slowly to his study—a small, oak-panelled room opening into the library, with wide windows looking over the park, and beyond, to where the swelling hills were covered with a forest of pine and fir.

His table was littered with papers and books of reference. The heavy brass inkstand looked important as the fire shone on its polished surface. He drew a chair up before the glowing logs and lit a cigar. His brow darkened, his moody gaze rested on the bright flames with brooding discontent.

"If it had all come to me, or if it had only come sooner," he thought. "To be the recipient of another's bounty is a sorry position. To play second fiddle in a place like this—where everyone's pedigree is known, and where, at any moment, popularity means danger. No—the safe path is the best. Fortunately I have no ambition. The limited triumphs of the county squire are not in my line. All the spirit has been crushed out of me by those hateful years. In every stranger's face I seem to see accusation or suspicion."

He rose abruptly and paused before the scattered sheets on his writing-table.

"Yet one must do something," he muttered. "Perhaps I shall find a savage satisfaction in this work—in unearthing the sins of justice, the weakness of laws, the baleful influence of criminal punishment—in proving how oft and how cruelly wisdom has miscarried—how many innocent victims have cried to dumb walls and senseless gaolers for redress. Perhaps—who knows? On the other hand, the task lashes old memories to life, embitters me afresh, and barbs my pen to pierce where it should only point."

Again he seated himself—again relapsed into moody thought. "Other men have enjoyed life; have drunk its wine and rejoiced in its youth. What sort of youth had I? Hard, sordid, unloved, unloving. And then the struggle with fortune—the dread of poverty for her—the incessant toil, the wretched doling out of every sixpence, and still that spectre of debt at each year's end. Was it any wonder that I fell before temptation? It seemed so easy—so possible. With anyone else there would have been no chance of discovery; but with me—my cursed luck again."

He threw the cigar aside and once more commenced that restless pacing.

"I must live it down. There is nothing else for me to do. Other men have their clubs, their friends, their amusements. I—what have I? A morbid horror of the past—a dread that some chance word or memory will point scorn's finger at my head. I have scarce touched 30 years, but my hair is white, my cheek furrowed, my soul dead."

His head sank on his breast. The dark waters of despair and bitterness engulfed him once again. There was no comfort for him in his inner loneliness. Minutes turned to hours, hours struck their warning note; yet still he sat brooding and motionless, forgetful of everything except the shame that a chance thought had fired to life among the blackened ashes of memory.

* * * * * *

The child had tried Mary Connor's patience to its utmost that morning. It was too wet to go out of doors. She refused her playthings, and nothing would induce her to remain in one place for the space of five minutes. Another freak had seized her also. She would only speak French, and Mary particularly objected to what she called "such haythin nonsense." Fortunately, when affairs were almost at a crisis her mother appeared on the scene. She held in her hand the photograph of Mrs. Monteath.

"Come here, Val," she said. "I want to tell you about this lady who is coming to see you."

She took a low chair by the fire and the child approached cautiously.

"Is it the mademoiselle who will spy?" she asked.

Mrs. Haughton flushed angrily. "I forbid you to use that word," she said.

"It is not my word," said the imp. "If it is not a proper word, a nice word, why did papa say it? He was angry, too."

She stood peering at the photograph, just out of reach of her mother's hand.

"Oh! mais 'c'est charmante. Oh! la belle dame!" she exclaimed. "How soon is it she arrives, p'tite mere?"

"She will not arrive at all unless you promise to be good and obedient, and learn your lessons," answered her mother.

"Oh, but I shall. I like her if she laugh like that. You are so grave, you all here. Papa he never laughs, nor you. And Mary—quoi donc. How is it with Mary? She pretend to be cross. She cannot comprehend—make sense of what I say. Is this new mademoiselle of France?"

"She is not mademoiselle at all. She is madame. She has also a little boy."

"A little boy!" cried Val eagerly. "Oh! la! la! She will bring him here with her to play with me, to learn with me? I shall not be alone any more."

She commenced one of her special evolutions to attest the delight this new arrangement afforded her.

"Sure, was there ever the likes of it," murmured Mary, in the background.

"If you will be quiet and come and sit on my knee, as I asked you, I will tell you all about this lady," said Mrs. Haughton.

"The lady!" Val gave a contemptuous twirl. "Oh, she—c'est inferieure; it is of no consequence. It is the little boy I must hear of. Where is his picture? Has it not arrived aussi—also? Oh, I must see his picture. Will you ask the mademoiselle to send it, so I see for myself how he is like? A boy—up p'tit garcon. But that is good, maman. I shall then have someone to talk to—play with—fight at. Oh, it will be si drôle, si drôle."

Her mother listened in despair as she rattled off these sentences at railroad speed.

"The little boy will not come," she said. "He is at school."

In her heart she sorely regretted the inadvertent announcement of the said boy's existence. But then one never knew what Val would do or say.

She paused now in a pirouette and faced her mother wrathfully. "At school, what then? Let him come away from school. I want to see him. Ecoute donc." She raised a rebellious finger to emphasise her words. "If he does not come I will plague the mademoiselle so that she cannot stay here. I will learn nothing—mais c'est vrai—rien de tout. I can be stupid if I so please."

"Valerie, you will break my heart with your wilfulness," said her mother, despairingly. "I am—tired, ill, worn out; and you are more than I can stand. Sometimes I think you are possessed by some evil spirit. You are not a bit like a Christian child—like the children I have seen and know."

"I am good—sometimes," answered Val. "And I do pray to the p'tit Jesu to make me so—every night. It is so, Mary, is it not? Perhaps He does not hear me," she added thoughtfully. "There must be so many little children all praying at the same time and asking the same thing. So—some of them He does not listen to—or else He does not want to make them good. If I do not become good soon, p'tite mère, I shall not ask Him any more. It is that He does not wish it."

Irish Mary crossed herself with righteous horror. The little countesses had never behaved like this. What was one to do with such a child?